Saudi and UAE fighters have built new fortifications around Hodeida and are conducting fresh military drills amid a steady flow of Coalition military reinforcements rolling into the city, all indications that the Coalition still intends to capture Hodeida.

The latest incident came amidst a precipitous rise in tensions in eastern Yemen, where local residents have been grappling with an increasingly brazen military buildup by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

AL-MAHRAH, YEMEN -- Fierce clashes have erupted between local tribes and Saudi forces supported by local mercenary groups in the Haat district of Yemen’s eastern Mahrah province. The clashes were sparked when local tribal members prevented Saudi shipping containers containing military equipment and household appliances from entering the country via

TomDispatch’s Bob Dreyfuss asks: could military actions designed to be limited — say, a heightening of the Israeli bombing of Iranian forces inside Syria, or possible U.S. cross-border attacks from Iraq, or a clash between American and Iranian naval ships in the Persian Gulf — trigger a wider war?

Here’s the foreign policy question of questions in 2019: Are President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, all severely weakened at home and with few allies abroad, reckless enough to set off a war with Iran?
Could military actions designed to be limited — say, a heightening of the

LONDON -- As the entirely man-made crisis in Yemen continues to worsen, the U.K.-based charity Oxfam has stated that some desperate Yemeni families are selling their daughters, some as young as three years old, as child brides in hopes that their dowries can buy them much needed food and shelter.
Oxfam made the shocking and disturbing claims in

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Whitney Webb

Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.

The U.S. government continues to scramble to keep its allies from buying its THAAD missile defense system’s top competitor, the Russian S-400. Unfortunately for them, it’s the U.S. taxpayers who are footing the bill.

WASHINGTON -- On Monday, in an all-but-unreported news item, the Pentagon announced that it would be paying $946 million to Lockheed Martin toward the installation of a missile defense system that was purchased -- not by

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Whitney Webb

Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.

Local residents and analysts alike fear the Saudi-led Coalition is using the relative calm derived from the new agreement as cover to fulfill its military objectives and not as a stepping stone towards peace.

HODEIDA, YEMEN -- Hundreds of residents from across Yemen’s Red Sea port city of Hodeida took to the streets for the third straight day, calling on the United Nations to take action to implement a troop withdrawal deal between the Houthis and the Saudi-led Coalition that was reached on February 19th. Residents waved Yemeni flags, Kalashnikovs, and